A senior official in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will meet Egyptian President and other top officials on Monday to discuss Cairo’s request for a $4.8 billion loan, a major state-run Egyptian newspaper reported on Saturday.
The IMF loan is seen as crucial to easing Egypt’s budget deficit and an economic slump caused by the turmoil that followed the popular uprising that ousted autocratic president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
“Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi will receive on the day after tomorrow Masood Ahmed, the IMF director for the Middle
East and Central Asia… and it is expected that the meeting will include talks about the IMF’s loan to Egypt,” the Akhbar Al-Youm daily reported. It said Masood would also meet Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, some ministers and the central bank governor. Officials from the cabinet, presidency and IMF were not immediately available to comment on the report.
